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Went Hot: March 18, 2008 - 6:22 am
Posted By: aimClear 60 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.ask-kalena.com)
Category: Blogging
41 Comments
Went Hot: March 18, 2008 - 6:22 am
Posted By: aimClear 60 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.ask-kalena.com)
Category: Blogging
41 Comments
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Comments
Thanks Marty. Even better, they scraped my dumbass post: http://www.webpropeller.co.uk/?p=283. I'm lovin this. I wonder how long before the penny drops?
That home page text looks mighty familiar.... http://www.hobo-web.co.uk scumbags - everybody's getting it in the morning!
@ Hobo - you mean WP have stolen your HP text?
Well it looks a bit familiar! :) - Check their home page text
I feel better already http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/seo-blog/index.php/seo-manchester/
Yeah baby. Do a Google search for "Web Propeller". ROTFLMAO!
There's 3 scrapers that get my posts as soon as I press the publish button. I hate that. This is super funny though Kalena!
They have taken the site down now - http://www.webpropeller.co.uk/
Apparently it was a test. But still - scraping SEOs is never a very clever plan Charlie. They tend to notice fast and deal with it. At least you didn't try to scrape DaveN eh? :)
@Nick: The "Good" SEO Witches (US) win a small victory. LET's OUT SCRAPERS here for Google's benifit.
Hello, I have just been alerted to this. What a lovely start to a Tuesday Morning.
One of the lads in my department asked if he could use the domain name webpropeller for some seo tests he wanted to do. AS we have no plans at the moment for the domain I did not see a problem. It would now appear I have been very naive. Our core business is a web design company
I have not seen the amount of contnet that was scraped from the sites. he removed the content this morning in a panic from his home before I was called by him explaining what he has done.
All I can do is offer my sincere apologis to both Hobo SEO who he aparently stole his copy from (he's certainly no copywriter) and Kalena and Tim nash who he was scraping content via a wordpress plug in.
The Contact email was being sent to myself, I don't recall ever recieving an enquiry. If I did, I would have paid attention to what was actually on the site.
anyone have any Suggestions for his punishment please?
He is due in in 8 minutes.
BTW He scraped my blog too... Thanks for checking in here.
You think that's bad, check out this site:
http://www.mvseo.com/
I think that you should pat him on the back for having big kahooners and tell him to do the test in a vertical without hundreds of geeks with 4 hours sleep and high on Red Bull ;o)
Naturally I would never condone the scraping of content, although he showed initiative and should be encouraged to test out his theories on throw-away websites.
IMHO
Why? Did one of your staff just piss off the entire seo community.
I don't think they did.
Do you have to go and tell the MD what has gone on in an hour? nope.
That will be me then.
That last comment was at Eavsey.
evilgreenmonkey
His thinking, as he has just been in to Grovel (Haven't you Chris) was that he could make a mish mash of feeds and somehow rank.
He claims he got the site up to Number 12 in the UK results, although I can't seem to find any trace of him under anything competitive.
I've still got to explain this little episode to the MD
@Eavesy - That is quite amazing. Blatant is too polite a word.
@Eavesy - Sorry I have just looked at your site and that one.
Thats Unbelievable.
mybe you should sphinn a story about it, it worked here. I would never have known what he was up to if this had not been brought up.
@Eavesy - I've never seen anything as blatant in my life.
Chill pill ladies and gents, I'm sure they have learnt their lesson etc...
plus it has been entertaining :) now about the unused domain name, given how much harm you guys did with it, perhaps you would be aminable for those of whom you scraped content from to be able to put up some legit content on their to promote their own sites?
Just a thought of course the alternative is well almost unthinkable really all those pissed off SEOs and all :D
Tim, sure, its the least we can do as an apology.
If you write the text, and the same applies to Kalena and Hobo. I will get it sorted today.
Chris is walking round today like he has broken the internet.
They were scraping the crap out of our newsletter site too, in a few cases it was scraping and sending me google "alerts" to THEIR site with MY content - even before Google was sending me alerts for having seen the content on my own site! I freaked about that but by the next day Google was showing us as the original source of the content.
I was mistaken when I assumed there was nothing I could do - thanks, Kalena for spurring this action
Hi Carrie,
I'm sorry you seem to have been caught up in this as well. He claims he can't remember what sites he added the feeds to the scraper about.
Well this is a turn up for the books. It's certainly been entertaining but I'm not sure what/who to believe. A domain lookup for Web Propeller shows the registrant as Charlie Williams trading as Creative Suit but with registration type as individual. Anyway, I'm just glad to have put a stop to the scraping and the apology was very refreshing, thank you Matt and the naughty lad responsible. As for punishment, I think the public humiliation we've put him/you through is punishment enough. Let's hope the scraping experiments gave him enough data to build a useful (ethical!) product for your company.
Thanks Kalena, Creativesuit is the company I work for.
And we do everything above board.
Charlie Williams is the MD, and as yet doesn't know about this.
He's in for a shock this afternoon
What I have learnt here, is to not let Juniors use domains without knowing what they are up to. Especially ones registered to the MD
@ EvilGreenmonkey IRN BRU actually - makes you a bit mad. Makes you hit first and ask questions later.
@ Tim Chill Pill taken
@Discuit - I think a suitable punishment would be for him to spend his summer holiday this year in Scotland.
Was busy this morning and just got in to deal with this - including an artilce about the parent company which I am glad never saw the light of day now - seeing the funny side now and appology accepted although this sort of thing is serious bad news for some people.
Perhaps we should help Eavesy out now?
Thanks Hobo,
I'll send him up to a Celtic match in A Rangers shirt, see how he gets on.
Site has been removed with an appology by the looks of it!
Wow a real online soap opera. Most entertaining, although a pain in the butt for those who were dragged into this. At least there seems to have been a happy ending.
Trust me Bwelford they are not much fun when you find the cause is in your own office.
...Send him to Duluth, Minnesota for the winter...
Don't you dare put him in a Rangers shirt! :)
Eavesy that needs sorted out. That's scandalous.
Thankfully a sense of humour is a prerequisite to any successful management position, particularly if you are not the boss as the old adage don't look up don't look down and always carry an umbrella.
I just want to say that although this was obviously a mistake, I give the guy tremendous credit for apologizing on the domain now.
SEO needs people willing to actually test, not just follow, and I think even if the thing he decided to test was perhaps wrong, perhaps some leniency should exist for him at least being willing to get off his butt to do it.
That being said, it was not my content he was scraping, so the weight given to my input should be limited.
I get Google alerts every day about people scraping one of my site's content; I don't see what the big deal is. It's never affected me negatively in the serp's, and when you go to these sites it's usually pretty obvious that they are trash.
I don't let it bother me. If I had to chase down these guys I would spend 30 minutes a day doing it.
how often do you get an apology from a content scraper? I think discuit deserves some credit for that...we all screw up here and there but at least they did the right thing and admitted it.
As much scraping as I see going on, I can't see getting too upset about this...the guy owned up to the mistake and apologized which is more than most scrapers do.
I assume everything I post online will be scraped multiple times and I don't let it affect me at all.
Without sounding rude, hell actually I am being rude,
to Todd and half the thread read the comments I'm going to rant but its quite clear that when this post was published it hadn't been resolved it is also clear that people started taking chill pills and stopped rounding on the guys when they had apologised and sorted it.
The only thing keeping this thread going is people whining about people whining (I'm including myself) so perhaps we can all stop and read things through rather then have any more oh I get scrapped oh I think your so mean blah blah.
just a thought, sorry Todd you were the last in a line first to the fire.
So Tim I guess you gave my post a negative vote :.)
Not a problem...I don't take it personally.
yeah I gave everyone who failed to read one :) and I'm sure you returned the favour!
But well I'm sure you been involved with a thread and thought for [insert your favoured explitive] why can't people learn to read. Now I know 4 dimensions are hard for most people but its strange how people tend to forget that things change over a period of time.
Anyway end of rant promise
@ everyone who thinks site scraping is no big deal - just wait until Google starts indexing YOUR scraped content as the primary source and banishing your original posts to supplemental hell. Google Alerts filled with scrapers are not fun Monday morning reading and they are bloody time consuming. It happened to Carrie and it happened to me. I've been trying to ignore WebPropeller and other scrapers for over 6 months but decided enough was enough.
@ shady and darkmatter - yeah, it's true, the apology was most unexpected and a pleasant surprise considering the public thrashing I gave them. Hats off I say! They've given me laughs and lots of traffic for the journey so I'm not going to hold a grudge.
This is bad!